Vid.dat process is related to a malevolent program that can correctly be recognized as a coin miner virus. That malware type uses your PC components to mine cryptocurrencies, generally – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your computer roughly unfunctional as a result of high CPU usage.
What is Vid.dat process?
Vid.dat is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
Vid.dat – Very high CPU as well as GPU usage
Besides CPU usage, some of the coin miners also utilize GPU power for their tasks. In that situation, you will likely struggle also to see the mouse arrow moving – GPU is often utilized on 100%. It is not as crucial as CPU for system work, so Vid.dat coin miner viruses don’t waste time on trifles and utilize it all. It sometimes may cause sad consequences.
Shortly about cryptocurrency mining
List of the typical coin miner symptoms
How dangerous is the Vid.dat miner?
Coin miners does not deal damage to your files. However, they make a lot of unpleasant things with the whole system
First of all, Vid.dat malware makes your system overloaded. It is unable to run your applications now, because all processor power is consumed by a malware. That malware does not care for your demands, all it pays attention to is making money on you. Even if you are patient, and you waited until web browser is open, you will likely struggle with exceptionally slow performance. Pages can open up for years, any kind of logins will likely take about a minute – just a horror story for a person who does a job online.
Vid.dat Technical Summary.
| File Name | Vid.dat |
| Type | Trojan Coin Miner |
| Detection Name | Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner |
| Distribution Method | Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc. |
| Similar behavior | Soundservice.exe, Strongix.exe, Servicegetnartez.exe |
| Removal | Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Vid.dat removal. |
“Visible” harm is not a solitary negative activity coin miners perform to your system. Vid.dat coin miner also deals damage to your operating system. To complete all malicious operations effectively, it wrecks the protection components of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware halts it to avoid detection. If you open the HOSTS file, you will likely see a number of new notes – they are added by this coin miner to connect your computer to a malicious cryptomining network. All these adjustments are about to be reverted to the initial state in the process of PC recovery.
Hardware effects of coin miner activity
Besides slowing down your PC, running at peak power for long times can trigger damage to your machine as well as raise electricity bills. PC components are created to easily deal with high load, but they are good with it only in case when they are in a good shape.
Compact and covered processor cooling system is quite hard to crack. Meanwhile, GPUs have big and easy-to-access rotors, which can be easily broke if affected while spinning, for instance, by the user much before the coin-miner injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the very high load caused by Vid.dat miner can easily lead to graphic card failure3. GPUs are also tend to have increased wearing when used for cryptocurrency mining. It is likely an undesirable case when your GPU’s performance plunges 20-30% only after several weeks of being exploited in such a way.
How did I get Vid.dat coin miner virus?
Coin miners are spread through different ways, but their main sources are malicious banners and programs from dubious sources
The example of malicious banners you can see in the Internet
Another way you could get this item on your computer is by downloading it from the unreliable website as a part of a program. Users that spread hacked versions of favored programs (which do not demand the license key) have small chances to earn money. For this reason, there is a very big lure to add malware to the final package of the hacked application and receive a coin for every setup. Prior to criticizing these guys for hacking and also malware spreading, ask yourself – is it okay to avoid purchasing the program in such a way? It is much cheaper to pay $20-$30 one time than to pay a much bigger figure for antivirus software and new parts for your computer.
How to remove the Vid.dat miner from my PC?
The best way to get rid of this coin miner virus is to use anti-malware software
Booting the PC into Safe Mode with Networking
Press the Start button, then choose Power, and click on Reboot while holding the Shift key on the keyboard.
Windows will reboot into recovery mode. In that mode, choose Troubleshoot→ Startup Settings→ Safe Mode with Networking. Press the corresponding button on your keyboard to choose that option.
When your computer is in Safe Mode, all third-party apps, along with the majority of non-crucial system components, are not launched with the system start. That allows you to clean the system without dealing with high CPU usage of the coin miner.
References
- Read about why Monero and DarkCoin are so popular amongst cybercriminals.
- About unwanted effects for GPUs in the process of cryptomining.
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